* Posts by willi0000000

295 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Sep 2013

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That emoji may not mean what you think it means

willi0000000

Re: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My hovercraft is full of eels.

US President Joe Biden reminds the White House he is serious about repairability

willi0000000

given everything else on his plate from the previous maladministration, i'm surprised he found time for right to repair.

Boffins' first take on asteroid dust from Japanese probe: Carbon rich, less lumpy than expected

willi0000000

the favorite thought going through any competent scientists head must be:

"that's odd"

.

.

.

.

re:life origin

it seems that chemistry has an affection for carbon compounds (source: my son the PhD Organic Chemist) . . . given energy (solar, lightning, etc) and raw materials (say, all the worlds oceans and what's dissolved in them) and deep time you're going to get some pretty complicated and complex molecules.

enough of them bumping into each other (remember the sample size and the number of collisions/second) and life is almost a certainty.

and once you have that first eater/excreter/grower/reproducer it's off to the races!

China discloses new space tech: Coloured cargo labels to replace beige ones taikonauts found fiddly

willi0000000

i guess

the American "vote auditors" (you might know them as the data ninjas) will now have something else to look for besides bamboo . . . crabby substances.

i don't like this reality, i want to return to the sane one.

[ be still my heart ]

Nearly 70 years after America made einsteinium in its first full-scale thermo-nuke experiment, mystery element yields secrets of its chemistry

willi0000000

Re: “You cannot control the transmutation process,” Carter said

it's like exploration . . . you don't know what you'll find, and of what you find, not all will be suitable for exploitation but someone will find a way of turning some of the things you find into money.

State of Iowa told no, you can’t use $21m coronavirus federal aid to help fund your $52m Workday roll-out

willi0000000

ERPS-OP indeed.

There ain't no problem that can't be solved with the help of American horsepower – even yanking on a coax cable

willi0000000

hence the term thinwire?

US senators: WikiLeaks 'likely knew it was assisting Russian intelligence influence effort' in 2016 Dem email leak

willi0000000

Re: Almost like there's an election...

not quite . . . see r. m. nixon pardon.

Good news: NASA boffins spot closest near-Earth asteroid ever. Bad news: We never saw it coming. Good news: It's also really small

willi0000000

did anyone really expect my countrymen in this anti-science time to allocate money "just to watch stupid space rocks that are probably just another hoax to scam us out of money to line the pockets of those damn scientists!!!!!"?

[ i weep for my country . . . every day ]

Microsoft adds 'Here's what we may have broken' screen to Windows 10 Insider PCs

willi0000000

i remember, back in the day . . . wait a second . . . sorry i don't actually remember.

[ i is an old ]

Square peg of modem won't fit into round hole of PC? I saw to it, bloke tells horrified mate

willi0000000

Re: DIMM Slots

carpenter's best friend four-inch putty.

So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance

willi0000000

i have no idea why they didn't want The Hammer Guy™ to install the new machine . . . he solved their problem, told them how to backup and made the point perfectly clear and memorable!

i'd have demanded The Hammer Guy™ back.

The silence of the racks is deafening, production gear has gone dark – so which wire do we cut?

willi0000000

Re: The big red button

why do the cps tables compare so many things to the efficiency of the United States Post Office?

[ i've worked there . . . efficiency isn't really their thing ]

Japanese hotel chain sorry that hackers may have watched guests through bedside robots

willi0000000

so . . . you think they should just take their lumps.

Good news: NASA and Homeland Security just passed their government IT exams – and we really mean *just*

willi0000000

NASA's problems start with the fact that administrators are often not spaceflight or aeronautics supporters.*

the problem is made almost infinitely worse because every Senator, Representative and President endlessly tries to micromanage** NASA as to what space missions to undertake and which state gets to supply parts.

and none of the micromanager wannabes care about aeronautics or NASA's education programs.

* Charles Bolton, the previous (unless that's changed again) administrator is an ex-astronaut was a modern exception.

** usually via funding threats.

willi0000000

Re: Wank

c'mon . . . the have two years in-a-row of not anybody failing.

that's better than last year's one in-a-row.

Comms room, comms room, comms room is on fire – we don't need no water, let the engineer burn

willi0000000

Re: "the (suicidal?) bravery (stupidity?) of our colleague"

of course not . . . i'm an old (so not reliable in the memory department) but i remember seeing an item stating that no forest fire here on the left side of the pond has ever been put out by firefighters . . . it's always eventually extinguished by rain.

it figures as no fire truck can carry the amount of water that a 100,000 ton cloud can.

Giga-hurts radio: Terrorists build Wi-Fi bombs to dodge cops' cellphone jammers

willi0000000

Re: Diretional antenna

i thought it was RUDE.

[ Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly Event ]

There was yet another net neutrality hearing today in America, and it was all straightened out amicably and smoothly

willi0000000

my country is broken . . . sorry for any inconvenience for the rest of the world.

some of us are desperately trying to fix it.

Our vulture listened to four hours of obtuse net neutrality legal blah-blah so you don't have to: Here's what's happening

willi0000000

Re: Turf wars

"...and then the plumbing that joins them."

would that be some system of tubes?

Bethesda blunders, IRS sounds the alarm, China ransomware, and more

willi0000000
Flame

20 months

for ruining someone's life in a particularly nasty way? . . . maybe 20 months hanging from his dangly bits then a lifetime behind bars to think if it was worth it.

Tech support discovers users who buy the 'sh*ttest PCs known to Man' struggle with basics

willi0000000

do you think that's the reason the power button is on the bottom left on my monitor?

FCC slammed for 'arbitrary and reckless' plan to change how text messages are regulated

willi0000000

comforting innit.

it's so good to know that someone is watching over the telecos . . . it would be terrible if they missed any opportunity to screw over their customers.

as far as content is concerned, i can't wait for a complete loss of messages from any and all groups considered "progressive" . . . and i'm sure that a "service" to repeat all t'Rump's tweets as text messages to every device in the country will be greenlighted and added to our bills.

It's all a matter of time: Super-chill atomic clock could sniff gravitational waves, dark matter

willi0000000

@danR2

i found that the NIST site (as usual) to be helpful.

try: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2018/11/nist-atomic-clocks-now-keep-time-well-enough-improve-models-earth

Tor-forker Joshua Yabut cuffed for armoured personnel carrier joyride

willi0000000

Re: I'm curious..

they all form up behind the leader so they can be there at the end of the "chase" (usually the chasee wrecks or runs on foot).

then they can all chant"STOP RESISTING!!!!!" while beating the perp . . . unless he's white, of course.

Calm your conspiracy theories, latest glimpse reveals Planet Nine may just be a pipe dream

willi0000000

it's Planet Ten, damnit!

[ haven't they seen Buckaroo Banzai? ]

It's true – it really is grim up north, thanks to Virgin Media. ISP fined for Carlisle cable chaos

willi0000000

Re: Taking the cheapest contractor is not the only option

But C.M.O.T. Dibler offered such good terms!!!!!

[ thank you, Sir Pterry ]

NRA gives FCC boss Ajit Pai a gun as reward for killing net neutrality. Yeah, an actual gun

willi0000000

@Kaltera

there are limits on every right in The Bill of Rights . . . there are limits on 'free speech' (unless it's money) and there have been restrictions on fully automatic weapons, sawed-off shotguns and others for a long time now.

i have no idea why the supreme court decided that everybody is a member of a "well regulated militia" . . . but i suspect the reason is money again.

Is that you, T-1000? No, just a lil robot that can mimic humans on sight

willi0000000

outcome questionable

want to drive the 'bot mad? . . . have a human palm a basketball and then spin it up on one finger.

What did we say about Tesla's self-driving tech? SpaceX Roadster skips Mars, steers to asteroids

willi0000000

Re: no one has mentioned

who cares about thee boot . . . look in the suit!

[ has anyone seen Bezos lately? ]

MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF CARS: SpaceX parks a Tesla in orbit (just don't mention the barge)

willi0000000

thumbthing else

apparently, Musk confirmed that there's a towel in the glove box.

Night before Xmas and all through American Airlines, not a pilot was flying, thanks to this bug

willi0000000

Re: Time and a half or a holiday over christmas

Money can't buy happiness but it can rent it!

willi0000000

teamwork

It’s another example of why we are thankful to have such an incredible team.

i've never seen a statement like that by a corporation that wasn't followed by layoffs, salary reductions or pension theft?

[ it's good to be loved ]

Today is your last chance to pick up a piece of channel history

willi0000000

i'd rather have KAR 120C

576-megapixel 'Zwicky Transient Facility' telescope sees first light

willi0000000

Re: Zwicky thought of it first

"spherical bastards" . . . i might find a use for that.

A draft US law to secure election computers that isn't braindead. Well, I'm stunned! I gotta lie down

willi0000000

*sigh*

right-side-of-the-pond problems.

i've voted a lot of times (damn i'm old) and the best system i've seen is paper ballots where you fill-in a block (or other little shape) that are put into a ballot box and, at the end of the day, transported to the town hall for machine counting.

the system leaves a human-readable paper trail that can be recounted by precinct for spot checks or entirely recounted is shenanigans is suspected.

that secures the votes . . . now, can we solve the voter suppression problem?

[ . . . and, just maybe, confine campaigning to the two months preceding one national designated day for all primary elections . . . and hold the election one month later ]

willi0000000

it helps if the acronym lies about what is in the bill.

Hurricane Maria leaves Arecibo radio telescope damaged and dark

willi0000000

yes, fix the people and their water, sewer, electric, etc. first (just so nobody thinks i'm a monster)

then . . . i hate to think it but the present administration will probably see this as a sign that the big beard in the sky hates radio astronomy and therefore won't fund fixing it . . . letting the equipment rot in the jungle for a few years, until a more enlightened administration happens, will insure it doesn't get fixed.

[ . . . or maybe all they need is their personal hatreds of science ]

Facebook posts put Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli in prison as a danger to society

willi0000000

one smirk down . . . thousands to go . . . persevere!

New Horizons probe awakens to receive software upgrade

willi0000000

what will they do if they find out the duck is made of wood?

Oracle 'systematically denies' its sales reps their commissions, forces them to work to pay off 'debts', court told

willi0000000

if somebody is waiting around for the US Supreme Court to save them from the evil corporation . . . don't hold your breath now that they jammed a republican into the seat that mitch mcconnell held open for him.

the new guy is known to be quite business-friendly.

Connect at mine free Wi-Fi! I would knew what I is do! I is cafe boss!

willi0000000

@Doctor Syntax

you might want to check to see if someone has wired something backwards . . . that type of half-bright (or less) behavior of CFLs can be caused by switching the neutral instead of the phase wire . . . it's not a problem (unless you consider possible electrocution a problem) . . . the glow is caused by leakage between the ballast and ground (probably capacitive coupling with an electronic ballast and inductive with a really old CFL lamp ballast)

i've found that most people who work on lamps (<pedant> actually fixtures </pedant>) almost never connect the phase and neutral consistently . . . they don't care which wire goes where on the plug end and can't be bothered to keep the wiring properly phased (to match the plug) at the socket.

this is a problem here on the left side of the pond as lots of plugs aren't polarized (and often don't have a ground), nobody pays attention to which side of the all-brown cord goes where (the striated side is phase and the smooth side is neutral) and they haven't a clue why one screw on the socket is brass-colored (coloured) and the other silvery.

[ i swear, it's like all of them are trying to be Witchfinder Private Newton Pulsifer - h/t Mr. Gaiman & Sir Pterry ]

willi0000000

@AC

i don't have to pick my "white" . . . i just use NTSC.

No, the cops can't get a search warrant to just seize all devices in sight – US appeals court

willi0000000

Mess

Orin Kerr, a law professor at Georgetown University, via Twitter observed, "On a first read, at least, Judge Srinivasan's alternative holding in Griffith is going to create a mess."

funny how respecting everybody's rights is always such a bother.

US trade watchdog puts down the phone to Qualcomm, reaches for probe, sticks it in Apple

willi0000000

sounds to me like somebody didn't make a big enough campaign contribution.

[ . . . or wouldn't support some idiot plan to redistribute even more wealth upwards ]

Four techies flummoxed for hours by flickering 'E' on monitor

willi0000000

Re: "by the size of his Micro Channel Adapter"

my father taught me at a young age (about 60 years ago, now) that all tools and most things you work on require occasional blood sacrifices . . . i thought i found the one job, draftsman, that broke his rule and was thinking of telling him when i cut a finger to the bone while trimming mylar sheets to size.

it was years later that i discovered that they make computer cases from old razor blades.

It took DEF CON hackers minutes to pwn these US voting machines

willi0000000

the electronics are lovely but useless when casting your vote.

probably the safest method is manually marking a paper ballot . . . if a human can mark it a human can read and count it.

when it comes time to tally the vote a machine does it faster, and probably more accurately, than a human.

recounts can also be done by using other machines to get a first look and comparing it to the count by a human panel . . . if there is a discrepancy, the source should be relatively easy to find.

[ when all is said and done, i worry more about masses of people (olds, non-whites, poors) being disenfranchised by the various cures for non-existent voter fraud ]

Dear racist Airbnb host, we've enrolled you in an Asian American studies course

willi0000000

racism is a social construct and has no basis in biology . . . there is no "white" gene!

As you head off to space with Li-ion batts, don't forget to inject that liquefied gas into them

willi0000000

great stuff for Mars . . . greenhouse gasses could only help . . . sounds perfect for outer planets (and their moons) also too.

FOIA documents show the Kafkaesque state of US mass surveillance

willi0000000

how much longer until the FISC just send you the verdict and a set of instructions to follow and a list of persons who have to report for jail time?

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